


something to live for

by EmmaMae



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missions Gone Wrong, Pre-Canon, Probably ooc, Training, back story, young Billy Lurk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23714575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaMae/pseuds/EmmaMae
Summary: Prompt: 'training with Daud and a younger Billie, platonic or romantic.'"You think you’re already dead inside, but I’ll give you something to live for. You’ll fight for me and kill people like the ones who’ve hurt you."In which Billie learns what it takes to become an assassin, the hard way.
Kudos: 4





	something to live for

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-upload from a few years ago, because I apparently deleted this? Anyway, it was a part of gift exchange back in 2014 or 15, but I can't remember who it was for... so, sorry about that! 
> 
> This is my interpretation of what life for Billy and Whalers would have been like years before the Plague.

The first time she'd had blood on her hands, it had been her own. Dazed hands weaving through her hair, searching for each small splinter of glass from the bottle her mother had thrown, and she'd held back the sobs that wrecked through her small body as the blood trickled down her forehead. The tears disappeared over time, stuttered apologies and desperate pleas gave way to anger and defiance, and finally laughter. Years of endless abuse and finally, she cracked. She had laughed at her mother as the blood ran like rivers down her arms, kicking the neck of the bottle across the rough floorboards, well-practiced fingers digging out each shard from her skin and throwing it to the floor. Really, if the old woman had sought to do any real damage, she could have at least chosen a better weapon. Pathetic.  
The second time, she hadn't even known the man's name. Not that the name mattered, she knew men like him, she knew his kind well enough to know him. He liked to think of himself as a predator, a dominator, a man who sought young flesh and abused simply for his own pleasure. Dirty, seedy, men like him were not deserving of names, of warm homes, of blissfully unaware families, of life. And she'd gutted him with the razor blade she always kept tucked in her pocket. He had clutched at his insides, bulging eyes staring in horror at the thick and dark red that bubbled out of him, he wavered on his feet and slumped against the filthy wall of the alleyway. It was a hard kick in the groin that crashed him to the floor and the heel of her boot that ground his roving fingers into the floor. Strangely, she had found it invigorating, never had she felt more alive.

  
After that, blood made contact with her skin regularly. For a handful of coin, she'd kill just about anybody. Loyalty could be bought and sold, and it didn't matter if she couldn't sleep at night with images of empty eyes and oceans of blood swarming her mind. The blood didn't matter. She could wash her hands of the blood, she could forget their faces with a few swigs of stolen gin, and she told herself that they were just dreams, they weren't real. The hunger though, now that was real. The starvation clawing at her insides and hollowing her skin, thinning her already-scrawny frame, and it was a threat more real to her than a knife and blood. Just a small pouch of coin meant that she could eat. And that made all the death, all the blood, worth it.  
This time... this time there wasn't meant to be any blood.

  
And it gushed out of the target's neck like a fountain, spluttering through the gaps between her fingers as she clutched at the wound fiercely, it splashed and stained everything within a three metre radius. Shit shit shit. It wasn't meant to be like this. The target - she can't even remember who he is or why she was sent here, only that she's here and he's dying - flails about hopelessly and desperately and his eyes are large with panic and his face pale and fuck. If Daud found out-  
She felt the air beside her shift and churn, spitting out a broad and navy blue-coated form. He stood at the edge of the room with his arms drawn tightly across his chest, the lines of his body severe with impatience.

  
"He's dead. It's futile to revive him now." Rulfio said gravely.

Billie looked down at the man in her arms, his head now lolling to the side, his eyes glassy. She could feel the deathly chill of his skin through her gloves. With a sigh, she released him, and he flopped to the floor with a grace only achieved by lifeless bones and rigid contracted muscles.

"I failed." She said, her eyes trained on the floorboards, now stained red with blood.

"Yes, you failed." Rulfio confirmed, walking across the room with the suave of a jungle cat, the soles of his boots tapping lightly against the floor. He bent down and gently passed a gloved hand over the man's face, closing those lifeless eyes.

"Daud will be furious." Billie said miserably.

"Of course he will be; there was a lot of coin behind this, Billy." Rulfio stood and dusted his gloves off on his coat.

"What do we do?"

Even though his face was covered by his mask, she could read his expression through the drop in his shoulders and the angle of his head, and he wasn't happy. "You are going to go back and tell Daud what happened. I am going to follow that boy back to whoever paid him."  
He made his way to the front of the store and gripped the tarnished handle of an old and flaking door, and without another word he hauled it open, tinkling the small bell that hung above. A breeze lashed through the open door way and with it came the sharp and bitter scent of whale oil mixed with salty sea air. Rulfio clenched his left hand into a first and his body dissolved into a black smoke that was picked up and carried by the wind.

Billie looked back at the drying pool of blood, the rich pigment similar to that of the Serkonan wine Daud kept on his desk and darkening to the colour of the river muck. She contemplated dumping the body in the port and gathering water from the tap in the rusty old bucket behind the counter and throwing it over the stain, but decided against it. She dreaded to think of the merchants wife's reaction when she returned. The shear horror of seeing her husband's corpse dumped on the floor with the sawdust and rat droppings. Billie wondered whether his wife knew of the shady business the merchant had gotten into, if she knew anything of the business deals being made amongst the filth and rats of the back alleys. Perhaps, his wife had been expecting blood for some time.  
Blood that shouldn't have been spilled. A deal that wasn't meant to fold and a dead target that was not meant to die.

The job had been simple. Follow Henric Samson, of Samson & Sons Refinery Gear, and make note of those he conducted business with. And that wasn't the business of selling tools to be used on the great whaling ships or refineries, as the front of his store claimed. She had been told to follow and to watch, and to protect if necessary. And she had failed to protect him. A scrawny boy consisting entirely of bones and hunger had barged into the shop, a cap drawn over his eyes and a white-knuckled grip on a rusty razorblade, and he'd lunged at the merchant before Billie, who had been watching from the rafters, could stop him.

She muttered a quiet apology, despite there being no one to hear her but the Void itself, and stepped outside. It seemed as if the whole of Dunwall had washed up on the dusty doorstep of the port-side store. The wind, whistling over the vast expanse of water, carried all the secrets of the city and a biting chill that cut through woollen coats and scraped at cheeks. Somewhere, perhaps miles away, a bell rang; its tone slow and laborious. The murmur of voices - remnants of a conversation between factory workers on a lunch break, a mother scolding her son, the city watch pestering a drunkard - drifted by like a feather clinging to the wind. Yet there was nothing but the lucid water of the Wrenhaven and the creaking of the sun-bleached gangway. This side of the port was quiet, especially at this time of year, when the air was cool and the waters were cooler. It was no wonder, really, why Samson had turned to back alley deals to earn a few extra coin.  
But what those deals were, Billie had no idea. Rulfio had made a point of not disclosing that information. And since he was of a higher rank than her, marginally, she hadn't complained. Often, in this line of work, it was better not to know.

When she returned to the school house, a dilapidated old building cornered against the angular jut of the river by crumbling and forgotten houses and half-finished developments, it was mid-afternoon. She was late, her patrol had been scheduled to end an hour before, and it was entirely her fault. She'd taken her time returning, wandering through alleys and clinging to the shadows instead of climbing the rooftops, and it became obvious as soon as she walked through the main door that it had been her second mistake. Billie climbed the stairs that ran through the centre of the building, a rigid spine for the decaying skeleton, and Rulfio passed her wordlessly, his mask in hand, and dark eyes failing to meet hers.

Daud's office had once been one of the classrooms, it was a large enough space to cram in a few bookcases and desks as well as small cot buried in the corner, with large and splintered window frames overlooking the forgotten corner of the Rudshore Financial District. The door was open, and from the hallway she could see Daud leaning over a desk with his second, Garrett, at his side, discussing something intently with low voices. She knocked. Daud's grey eyes flicked up at her and his jaw tightened. He raised a gloved hand and gestured for her to enter. As she walked toward them, she felt a wave of self-consciousness wash over her, never had she been so achingly aware of the blood that covered her uniform.

"Rulfio has already given his report." Daud said dryly. He didn't need to tell her, she could taste the disappointment and frustration in the air as clearly as the lingering clouds of cigarette smoke. "But I'd like to hear it from you."

Without any further encouragement, Billie recounted the events of her watch, from the otherwise uneventful morning to the sudden slash of a razor and the pouring of red. She spoke plainly and quickly, eager to end the tale and dart from the room. But as she finished speaking, Daud straightened his stance and leaned back slightly on his heels, a slight frown hanging on the corners of his lips.  
Billie stood silently in front of his desk; waiting. Daud lit a cigarette and through the haze of smoke his grey eyes narrowed disapprovingly. "Such a shame. You had potential."  
She felt her inside knot and tighten, her heartbeat hammering against the walls of her throat, her mouth suddenly dry and wordless. Daud held her gaze firmly, dull grey eyes cold with practiced precision. Once she had thought that he wore an iron mask to shield his emotions and thoughts, now as she stared back defiantly she thought that she had been wrong. Daud did not have emotions, once perhaps, years ago he may have, but the years had been unkind. Like the scars on his body, once a wound was opened it healed, soft skin now hard and marbled, his heart had been dealt many blows until it armoured itself against the attacks. A natural defence. Daud did not feel, he had trained himself not to, he had become a weapon.

Perhaps...perhaps he had seen something similar in her. She too had scars, some visible and others not so, hardened in places a child should not be. She had seen, and lived through, things beyond her years. And a few months ago she had been convinced that she too was unfeeling. The death of her friend had been hard but she had survived. Death had loomed above her and yet she soldiered on, a willingness not to live but to kill, she had sought blood. Daud had seen the steel of her heart on the day that they first met, the hard edge to her unyielding gaze, the taut line of her jaw. He had seen something of himself in her.  
But she was not without feeling. The months of training had brought her a comforting feeling of safety, one she had not felt before, and a strong sense of belonging. Although she never spoke of it, she was fond of her companions, the fellow novices who were all too new to the way of the blade or eerily comfortable with a thin hand wrapped around the handle. And she had felt for Samson as he flailed in her arms and spraying blood over the stores wares. And now; she felt shame.

"Get out."

\---

If there was one thing that Billie had learnt from her time with the Whalers, it was that Daud was not a kind man. He was notorious for being short tempered and cruel, an attitude carefully constructed to either break those around him or harden them. His words were like Tyvian poison, it sought out a person's weaknesses and burned at them mercilessly.  
Billie sat on her cot with her back pressed against the damp wall, her legs cast lazily over the roughly spun sheets. She frowned down at the chunk of soft wood in her hands, the blade of her dagger skimming over the wood in long strokes and gouging shallow notches, not entirely sure what she was carving but letting the grain of the wood and weight of the knife decide for her.

"Did you hear about Markus?" Chester asked her, as he dropped onto his own cot, the neighbouring one to hers. He twisted to the side to turn the oil lamp down, dimming the light to a dull orange glow.

Billie glanced over at him, fleetingly, and shook her head. "No, I haven't. What has he done now?"

"He burst into tears during his one-on-one with Daud this evening, I have no idea what Daud said to him but it cut him deep. Daud snapped the poor kids neck and threw him into the Wrenhaven, muttering something about him being a liability." Chester sighed, kicking off his boots and wriggling under his sheets.

Billie winced, feeling a pang of responsibility deep in her gut. "Kid shouldn't have cried."

"Yeah, I know, but he was still one of us. Even though he was a whiny little kid who didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He didn't deserve to die though..."

"Daud did what had to be done." Thomas said, emerging from the shadows of the doorway. In the soft light of the lamp, his skin appeared to be paler and his eyes darker, his messy crop of red hair like a flaming wick of a candle. He stood with his arms across his chest, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips, but his body was otherwise relaxed. "He wouldn't think well of you doubting his decision, Chester."  
Chester scrambled into an upright position at the hint of a threat in Thomas' voice, shooting him a glare. "I do not doubt Daud. I just think it's a waste of potential, to kill a kid for crying. Daud's been in a foul mood all day, since that contract with the merchant fell through."

Again, Billie felt a sharp and bitter pain, knowing all too well that Chester was right. It was her fault that Samson died, that Daud lost another contract, and it was her fault that Markus lay at the bottom of the Wrenhaven. Her jaw tightened and her grip on her knife tightened, slicing away at the chunk of wood in her hands until it no longer resembled anything of this world.

Rinaldo, who had been curled up in his cot for quite some time now, groaned loudly. He turned over and threw his pillow in Billie's direction, it narrowly missed her head and slumped against the wall. "Damn it Billie, stop that fucking carving, it's doing my head in!"

She sneered at him, throwing her knife across the room and in his general direction. The blade buried itself in the rotting plaster, inches away from Rinaldo's bed.

"Outsider's eyes, no throwing knives in the dorms!" Thomas cursed, pinning Billie with a glare. She shrugged, turning to plump Rinaldo's pillow and slide it beneath her own, somewhat grateful for the added comfort.

Rinaldo grumbled something unintelligible and sat up on his bed, wearily rubbing at his eyes. "Blame Billie for Daud's mood, she was the one who killed that merchant Samson and ruined Daud's contract."

"Fuck off Rinaldo, it was a mistake." Billie retorted, throwing the badly wounded chunk of wood under her bed.

"Even so, he shouldn't have taken his frustrations out on the kid. Markus had only been with us for two weeks, he didn't know any better. Sometimes, I think Daud isn't even human." Chester said the last part quietly, as if he feared Daud to appear from the shadows and fire a crossbow bolt between his eyes for even suggesting the idea.

"Maybe he isn't. I heard that his mother was a powerful witch who tricked a spirit of the Void into giving her a child blessed with supernatural powers." Rinaldo mused ominously.

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course Daud is human, he bleeds like the rest of us." Thomas scoffed, briefly disappearing into the side room which acted as a kind of locker room. When he reappeared, he'd abandoned his coat and boots and padded over to his own bed, fussing with his sheets before settling down comfortably, similar to that of a cat.

"See, I heard that he simply appeared from the shadows of the Serkonan slums, all bones and teeth, with that mark on the back of his hand glowing like a beacon in the dark. It's said that he wordlessly slaughtered the entire household of some noble lord with his bare hands, that he chased the lone survivor onto Gristol soil." Chester, living up to his reputation as the best storyteller of the Whalers, told them, his dark eyes gleaming in the flickering light of the lamp.

Billie smiled to herself as the others begged him to tell them more. She absently listened to the dark and gory tales of Daud, the shadow assassin of the dusty slums of Serkonos, of his adventures and duels with Overseers and jealous witches. Several other boys had come in from their duties, shrugging off their uniforms and settling in a circle around Chester's bed, passing around a stale packet of cigarettes and a dusty bottle of whiskey. Even Rulfio had decided to join them, seated somewhere near the back of the group, half in the shadows with a delighted look in his eye.

Her eyes passed over the dark abyss of the door frame, and then her head snapped up when she noticed Daud leaning against the frame, a slight smile on his lips. His grey eyes met hers, briefly, and then looked back at Chester surrounded by at least a dozen other Whalers. As Chester rounded up his story, one mostly focussing on a young Daud's battle with a mysterious sewer-dwelling beast, Daud sighed loudly, catching the attention of the group nestled in the centre of the dorm.

"You're stories are as accurate as your aim with a crossbow, Chester. You've earned yourself kitchen duty, first thing in the morning. Now, lights out."  
There was a chorus of groans as Daud disappeared from the doorway, and the collective group of Whalers dispersed from Chester's bed to their own. It was Billie who reached out and put the lamp out, plunging the dorm into darkness.

\---

Her dreams were dark and troubled, images of Samson's eyes wide and screaming, an ocean of blood rushing around her and pulling her down, a boy-assassin's demonic grin as she clawed at the red water holding her prisoner. She awoke in the early hours of the morning, sweating and shivering all at once, her lungs desperate for air. She forced herself from her bed and into her uniform, combing her short hair back with her fingers and into a semi-reasonable state.

The dorm had more occupants now, more immobile and snoring lumps under thin sheets and hugging pillows that reek of mildew. Rinaldo's bed was empty, and Billie vaguely remembered that he had been scheduled a patrol for the early hours. There was little activity in the school at this time, most were either sleeping in the classrooms-come-dormitories or out on jobs. As she crept past the large door to Daud's office, she paused to glance at the rota pinned to an old notice board on the opposite wall. Her usual training session with Daud had been rescheduled, now taking place with Garrett in the late morning, not long before noon.

She tried not to let that bother her. Daud wouldn't have done it to spite her, he was better than that, it was most likely a clash with a job or perhaps a meeting with a contact. But then, she remembered the way he looked at her when she told him about her failure, as if he hadn't quite believed it until that point. The sheer disappointment that had her stomach clenched into a ball and her eyes stinging with tears she refused to cry. It was hard thing, to let someone down. Betray their trust, and all they had invested, her entire fate crumbling at the slash of a razor. It seemed to ridiculous for something so stupid to have such an effect. But then, she had no idea why Samson's life was so important.

She stepped into the old assembly hall, a cavernous room with a high apex roof that reverberated every sound, that was now home to various training equipment. One corner was set up like an office, with tall bookcases and desks with scratched surfaces, a set-up for Whalers to practice stealth, or to role-play an assassination. Another was entirely dedicated to honing the skills of the crossbows, with painted targets and dummies suspended on ropes. Billie walked over to a rack of training knives, the soles of her boots tapping against the wooden floor, and she plucked four throwing knives from their holders. They were light, with smooth and tapered handles engraved with the symbol of the Abbey, the blade still polished to perfection as the day they had been stolen from a delivery cart in Holger Square. She grips the first tightly, weighs it in her hands, and then glances up at a target. She focuses, eyes narrowing with concentration, lifting the knife a lining it up with her eye sight. With a flick of her wrist, she sends it hurtling across the room. And, well, it's...not quite good enough.

She throws the next knife, and it misses the target entirely, clattering loudly against the floorboards. The final knife embeds itself in the stuffing of a dummy, three meters away from the target she'd been aiming at. Frustrated, she collects the knives and returns to the spot marked into the grain of the floor, and she throws again. And she repeats this pattern until her hands are aching and there are more holes in the targets than there are notches in the floor, until it is good enough.

She hears Daud's voice in her ears, urging her to concentrate, to straighten her shoulders and bend her knees, for her movement to be fluid and quick, to be perfect. She thinks of the look in his eyes, his lips pressed into a thin line that turned down at the corner, the edge to his voice when he told her to get out. She holds that feeling, what it felt to let him down, holds it tightly with both hands as if it were a length of rope suspended above red waters. She holds it and she hauls herself up, one hand at a time.

_"See this here?" Daud tapped at the side of the Overseer's neck, to which the Overseer sneered and struggled against his bonds. Billie nodded, tracing the taut lines of the man's throat, specifically the defined ridge to the left which Daud's fingertip brushed lightly. "Slice, stab, or shoot a target here and it causes the target to collapse after a few desperate gasps for air. Quick and easy death on our part."_   
_His fingertips trailed upwards, a little way below the Overseer's ear, and again he tapped gently against the pale skin. "Cut here and you cut the blood flow to the brain, knocking your target unconscious. Useful for targets intended to be caught alive. Although it's easy to miss or apply too much pressure and kill the target."_

_Daud pulled his hands away from the Overseer and his slumped back against the surface of the table, the Overseer grunted around his gag and glared at the two of them. The old assassin gave the snarling prisoner a fleeting pat on the cheek before moving down his body, a slight smirk on his lips. Daud's gloved hands probed at the Overseer's left thigh, seeking the right spot through the Abbey regulated trousers, pausing slightly above the knee. "Cut here to disable and incapacitate the target, although it doesn't immediately kill so be prepared for them to put up a fight. Anywhere further up and the artery is too well_

_protected to hit easily."_

_"What about the heart?" Billie asked, nodding towards the centre of the Overseer's chest._

_"Ah now the heart is often the first to come to mind. Located here," Daud places a hand slightly to the left of the centre, feeling the Overseer's life beat steadily beneath his palm. "A simple stab wound and the heart will temporarily seal itself, keeping the target on his feet. A cut large enough and deep enough will kill quickly."_

_"And the head?"_

_"Overseer's have thick skulls. Aim for the eyes or the temples and you'll have a better chance of doing some real damage. If you're in combat, I'd advise below the jaw and through the roof of the mouth. If you're disarmed then push upwards with the base of your palm into the bastard's nose." Daud explained, using his hands to point out the various areas, demonstrating exactly what he meant._   
_Billie watched carefully, taking mental notes of each movement, and then looked up to Daud expectantly._

_"Ready to show me what you've learnt?" He asked, arching a brow slightly. Billie nodded, her hands seeking the knives on the inside of her coat. Daud leaned down to the Overseer's ear and whispered: "Run." He slashed at the bonds securing the captive to the table, and the Overseer scurried to his feet and ran as fast as his feet would carry him._   
_Billie chased after him, blinking from one place to the next, her eyes examining and calculating all the places of the Overseer's body, before deciding on her mark. And when he dropped to the floor, bloodied and motionless, Daud had clapped her hard on the back and offered her a cigarette. "You did well, kid. Really well."_

When Billie looked up at the dummy, she audibly exhaled in relief at the sight of three knives firmly lodged in its stuffing; one in between the eyes, one at the centre of its chest, and one in the side of its neck. From behind her, there was a loud and slow clap, and Billie snapped around to face the intruder. Garrett held up his hands, displaying the fact that he meant no harm, his warm brown eyes watching her incredulously.

"If I meant to kill you, I wouldn't announce myself so boldly." He told her, and she lowered the knife she didn't quite remember raising. "Although I must say, I'm impressed. I've come across few novices who can execute a dummy as fluidly as you just did."

"Then I guess you didn't see the dozens that I barely grazed." Billie said coldly, turning away briskly to collect the knives from the dummy.

Garrett laughed, a hearty and wholesome sound that seemed so foreign to the desolate schoolhouse and its deadly students, and it echoed around the large room at an uncomfortable volume. "Then I'm glad I came when I did, for my own sake! I thought I was early too, by a long way, so I'm pleasantly surprised to see you here already. Are you always this early for training?"  
She shot him a look as sharp as the knives in her hands. "I am now."

He laughed again, which Billie was beginning to find infuriating already, and she sincerely hoped that it wasn't a habit of his. "So cutting! I can see now why Daud liked you so much."

Garrett was Daud's complete opposite. Where Daud was lean muscle and rough scars, Garrett was large and rounded and smooth skin. For a man of his age, which Billie guessed to be at least ten years older than Daud, his skin bore very few wrinkles. There was the crinkling around his eyes and the corners of mouth, but otherwise he looked deceivingly young, his cheeks were full and reddened with a permanent warmth, skin looking as soft as a noblemen's feather pillow. He had an impressive beard too, dark and wiry hairs that jutted out from his jaw and could easily brush against his collarbone. His hair was long and dark, always scraped back into a low ponytail at the base of his skull, with few trailing wisps framing his face. And he was tall; towering over most men Billie had ever come across, a foreboding figure that would have any target quivering in their boots.

Garrett was large in almost every way, a man who carried a vast weight that exceeds that of thundering of his footsteps, he had a presence that could either brighten a room with jokes and world-weary tales, or strike fear into the strongest of men's hearts. He could easily kill with the strength of his bare hands, but for convenience sake he preferred to use one of the large crossbows that had stopped being manufactured decades ago; an antique that would have looked ridiculous in anyone else's arms but in Garrett's it was a thing of beauty and elegance.

He was a great teacher, too. He taught Billie calmly, even when her own patience wore thin and her frustrations had her cursing and kicking at equipment frequently. Instead of losing his temper, as Daud often would, Garrett would reposition her stature or adjust the targets slightly. He would challenge her in ways she hadn't perceived as challenges, only realising what she had accomplished when she caught him grinning at her slyly. Over the course of several weeks Billie frequently found her training sessions were led by Garrett other than Daud, which had at first angered her, but after a while she grew used to the distance Daud had wedged between them. It was a sort of punishment, she had once been Daud's favourite but then she made a mistake and had lost his interest. And it wouldn't have been such a bad thing if it had only affected her training; but it hadn't. Her duties went from the highly envied and sought after patrol around the fringes of their territory, to having to clean the rather disgusting and ultimately feared bathroom. Instead of being given assassination targets, she'd been handed a list of items to be scavenged or stolen. Initially she had been angry, refusing to step into that damned bathroom, or abandoning her scavenging list in the Wrenhaven, but that only earned her even worse tasks. After a while, she learned to accept it, and became determined to prove her worth in whatever way she could.

Her training become her priority. She'd pester Garrett with questions, ask for him to elaborate on skills deemed too complicated, and she'd crave for more challenges. Her scheduled slot became too restricting and she found herself creeping from the dorm in the middle of the night to lose herself in the grip of a crossbow or the hilt of a blade.  
After a while, she didn't even need Garrett to guide her and teach her.

\---

She was in the training room when she felt it. A lightness in the air, the numbing scent of ozone and sea salt, when every inch of her began to tingle, and she's ripped from the school and serene silence and into a warzone. It's the only thing she can think to describe it as, with the deafening noise of gunfire and an alarm ringing so loudly she could feel it vibrate at the back of her skull. And then she saw him and it all made sense.

Daud had his blade crossed with a very furious-looking Overseer, although it was hard to tell with those ferocious masks, with another three of the blasted zealots climbing the rooftop with pistols in hand. He shot her a fleeing look of resignation and relief and she immediately got to work. It was lucky, really, that she had been training so late at night. It would have been unfortunate for the Void to grab her from her bed and spit her out into all this chaos completely unprepared.

She blinked to a nearby streetlight, slightly behind the advancing Overseers, and then slowed time to shoot them in the back of their necks with her crossbow, before they could even pull the hammer back on their own weapons. When time fell back into its usual rhythm, the Overseers tumbled to the ground with a pleasing groan and splutter.

Daud was still duelling the persistent Overseer, and it seemed that he was losing. He was clutching at a wound on his chest whilst he slashed manically at his assailant, with much less care than he ought to. She could visibly see the pain he was in; his jaw locked and still trembling, a sweat gathering in the furrow of his brow, and a desperation in his grey eyes. Billie blinked to the spot behind the Overseer and hooked an arm around his throat, pulling him back sharply against her chest, and with a blade she sliced open his jugular and dropped him to the floor.

In this brief space of time, she glanced around herself to determine their location. "The Office of the High Overseer? What were you thinking, coming here alone?" Billie barked at him, furious with his recklessness, when he was supposed to be the master assassin, a shining example to the rest of them.

Daud grasped at the wound situated just about his hip, his uniform was stained with a dark and troubling shade of red. She unfastened an Elixir from her belt and threw it to him, he caught it with a bloodied hand and uncorked it with his teeth, knocking back the foul tasting red liquid in one gulp. "I appreciate your concern, but I knew what I was doing."

"You knew what you were doing? So setting off the alarms and getting wounded was a part of the plan?" She could hear the shouting of Overseers fast approaching, and the excited yelping and barking of wolfhounds at their heels, they'd have to get moving soon to avoid another fight. A fight that Daud was in no position to take part in.

Daud didn't reply, but he didn't need to, every word he'd have liked to say was present in the glare that he pinned her with. A glare that had reduced a number of Whalers to tears in the past. Billie shook her head with something akin to exasperation, and stepped forward to wrap an arm around his shoulders to further support him, and he tensed up at her touch. The old man wasn't used to being touched, most were far too afraid to, but when Billie looked at Daud she didn't see the fabled shadow prince of Serkonos. She saw a man, a man who bled and breathed and made mistakes just like any other.

"Let's get you out of here, boss." She told him, and he nodded, letting out a long and shaky breath. Billie tensed her left hand and blinked across the rooftops of the various outbuildings that made up the backyard of the Office of the High Overseer. It was lucky that they left when they did, as they reached higher ground Billie could see the swarms of Overseer's scrambling around in the dark with weapons drawn, there was no way she alone could have fought that many off.

The night air was cold, it nipped and stung at her exposed cheeks as they moved with the wind, and she wished she'd thought to strap her mask to her belt earlier. Still, she was grateful for the protection their leathers provided against the cutting winds, it was better than wearing the tattered rags that all children of the streets wore.

Dunwall was beautiful at night. The darkness cloaks the cities many imperfections, swallowing them up like the unforgiving waters of the Wrenhaven, and the lines of its towers and houses merged with the abyss of the night sky. Candle-lit windows - some of the noble estates even had electric lights - lit up like stars. The Wrenhaven glitters under the lights, its black waters placid and smooth like a mirror, and beyond it lies the unending and limitless darkness of the ocean. In the day, the skyline of the city is all too jagged, dark lines cutting into the sky like pointed knives, harsh and ruthless like the people within. The night smoothes out the callous lines and presents the city as something calmer, tamer.

The school was still and quiet, much like the empty shell it pretended to be. She took the route that would by-pass the Whalers stationed as guards, mostly for Daud's reputation; it was one thing to have a wounded leader, but a wounded and foolish leader was a dangerous combination. She set Daud on his bed and ordered him to remove his shirts, to which he simply stared at her in shock. When she returned from searching for a medical kit, she was surprised to find that he had done exactly what she asked. He lay awkwardly against a pile of confiscated pillows, bare-chested and shivering with his gloveless hands grasping his wound, his dusky skin looking far too pale in the moonlight. Billie knelt at his side, gently moving his hands away, revealing a deep and angry looking slash that stretched from the tip of his hip bone to a little way below his bellybutton. It wasn't bleeding as heavily as it had been, but the colour of the blood was darker than it ought to have been and oozed lazily from the gash. She wiped at it with a damp, and relatively clean, cloth and then dabbed a splash of Elixir along it. Daud flinched as the red liquid of the Elixir made contact and she rolled her eyes at him.

"Huh, I should inform Thomas that he was right." Billie said as she passed a length of surgical thread through the eye of the needle she held. When Daud gave her a questioning look, she smiled faintly. "You do bleed, so you must be human after all."

Daud would have laughed, if Billie hadn't pushed the needle through his skin at that moment, and he spoke through gritted teeth: "Damn Chester and his blasted stories."

"I find them unsavoury, outlandish at best. But then I've never been one for fairytales. I'd much rather fact than fiction." Billie murmured, her brow furrowed slightly with concentration.

"There's a reason why I don't ask about anyone's pasts, Billie. There are some stories that should never be told, some pasts are best left in the past, and forgotten. I'd appreciate it if you returned the same level of respect and dropped the subject." Daud replied, the familiar coldness returning to his tone.

Billie didn't glance up to meet his gaze. "If you can't say it aloud then write it down. There's an anger in you that I've never seen in a person, I think it would help for you to get whatever happened off of your chest, even if you're the only person to ever read it."

He hummed in quiet contemplation and it was silent for a moment, the only sounds being their heartbeats and the gentle pulling of the thread. As Billie finished the last stitch and cut the thread, Daud admired her handiwork. "Did Garrett teach you to stitch like that?"

"No. You pick up a few skills when living on the streets, there's always a knife wound to be stitched up, or a bullet to be pulled from some kid's shoulder. I'm just glad that I arrived when I did, you could have been in a lot worse condition." She wiped the stitches over with the cloth and then wrapped a bandage over his abdomen, and stood.

"I- thank you." Daud said sheepishly, as if it were the first words of thanks he'd spoken in years, and knowing him it most likely was. He pulled his shirt back on and seemed too preoccupied with doing up the many buttons to look her in the eye. "You're good at what you do and I shouldn't have discarded you so quickly for a simple mistake."

Billie shrugged, packing away the medical kit and taking a few steps back, putting some much needed distance between them both. "It's fine. I guess everyone makes mistakes, it's just a part of being human."  
Daud's head snapped up at her words and the warmth in his grey eyes was almost endearing. "Yes, I suppose it is."

\---

Years later, they stood at the edge of Wrenhaven, a large group of silent masked boys and a man in red with a jagged scar over his eye. They watched as the small boat was dragged with the current, wrenching past riverweeds and debris, and into the calm waters of the river. Garrett's body seemed too large for the boat, a slight smile still on his lips as if he'd only just finished telling one of his famous jokes, and it was strange to think that none of them would ever hear his voice again. It was foolish mistake that brought him to his end, a stray blade in a fight with the City Watch that caught the centre of his back and entered too deep, past saving. He was old and was lucky to have lived as long as he had, especially in their profession. The funeral, as small and unorthodox as it was, had been respectful and short. They had their traditions, a well respected member of their band would have a few words spoken on their parts before being thrown, along with what few possessions they owned, to the river. This was unusual, even for them. Still, none could think of a better way to send of Daud's second. Garrett wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Daud raised his crossbow and fired the incendiary bolt, lighting the boat in a roar of flames. "Goodbye, old friend." He murmured softly.

One by one they left, head bowed as they departed back to the base, very few words being exchanged. After a while, it was just the two of them stood at the ridge over the Wrenhaven, with Daud's eyes trained on the now distant flames, and Billie silently observing their surroundings.

When Daud finally spoke again, his tone was quiet and almost merged with the sounds of the city, yet each word made her heart beat a little faster. "I suppose I'm in need of a new second." He turned to her, his expression grave. "And I can think of none more deserving than you."

"I'd be honoured."

**Author's Note:**

> Oh also I'm trying to mix with the fandom again, so come find me on tumblr? @overseermartin


End file.
